It’s not all about the money: understanding farmers’ labor allocation choices

Agriculture and Human Values 31 (2):261-271 (2014)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Using a nationally representative survey of farm operators in Ireland, this study examines the effect of non-pecuniary benefits from farm work on labor allocation choices. Results suggest that non-pecuniary benefits affect both the decision to enter the off-farm labor market and also once that decision is made, the amount of time spent working off-farm. We find our derived variable representing non-monetary benefits associated with farm work to have a substantial impact similar to the effect of other more widely reported personal and farm structural variables such as the age of the farm operator, farm size, and farming system. The existence of these non-pecuniary benefits serves to increase the implied wage to farmers for their farm work. This in turn can lead to allocations of labor that would seem suboptimal from a purely financial point of view. Rural development policies aimed at creating off-farm opportunities could fail unless returns to off-farm work are high enough to compensate the farmer for losing the benefits associated with the farming lifestyle. From a methodological perspective, our analysis indicates that failure to model off-farm labor allocation choices as a two-part process may lead to some incorrect conclusions regarding the effect of certain explanatory variables. Outside of explaining farmers’ off-farm labor supply it would be useful to incorporate farmer perceptions regarding the non-pecuniary benefits from farming in economic models of farm behavior across a range of activities as this could lead to much more accurate predictions of farmers’ responses to policy changes.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,405

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

My decision to sell the family farm.Geoff Kuehne - 2013 - Agriculture and Human Values 30 (2):203-213.
Transition in rural economy: An employment perspective.Mukesh Kumar, Azeema Begam & Nargis Noman - 2020 - Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities 59 (1):51-73.

Analytics

Added to PP
2014-01-20

Downloads
41 (#428,301)

6 months
15 (#274,434)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Emma Dillon
University of Missouri, Columbia